Friday, April 18, 2014

"Don't speed through today to get to Easter Sunday. Allow the work God does in and through the darkness to get done." – Scott Emery

Saturday is the day of Holy Week I can relate to the most. It’s the day after everything falls apart but before the happy ending. For me, Saturday represents the Shadow of Christianity. Even though I believe the God of Love exists, the reality on the ground still devastates. There is so much evil, so much injustice, so much horror, and so much non-love.

Throughout history, there have been institutions and people who identify as Christians binding the wounded and shining light in the darkness. But that Shadow—damn. Just as often (dare I say more often), they have been silent or have enabled or have perpetrated the very evil that Christ came to overcome.

The Problem of Evil contributed to the gradual death of my childhood faith. It was an earnest faith, but it was one that I sought to control. Eventually, I found myself wrestling not only with the Problem of Evil, but also my sexuality, scientific data, and the dark side of church history. I lost the wrestling match, and limped away like Jacob. All seemed lost. I was a loser of the faith, one of those types of seeds in the parable that didn’t make it to full growth.

Still, I cling to hope. Hope that all is not lost. Hope that Love exists and grows and expands. Hope that the God of Love is there. My hope is nurtured not when I hear loud worship or fiery preaching or persuasive theology. My hope is nurtured when I see moments of human vulnerability, kindness, empathy, and tenderness. At this point in my journey, faith looks a lot more like hope than belief.

When hope is all you have left, then you are a Saturday Christian. Good Friday is over. Sunday is yet to come. But as Scott Emery implies in the quote above, we need to travel through this darkness. Put another way, we need to have our immature faith wrenched from our white-knuckled grip. Only then can resurrection come. As a Saturday Christian, that is my only hope.

Thursday, April 3, 2014

In Portland, Oregon, twelve bridges span across the Willamette River, which divides the city into East and West. Portland has many nicknames (City of Roses, Stumptown, Portlandia, Rip City) but one of the more common ones is Bridgetown.

My first memory of Portland was when my partner and I drove into downtown via the Burnside Bridge. It was around midnight, and we were finishing the third full day of driving from Ohio. We were exhasted and cranky, but I'll never forget seeing that neon Made in Oregon sign with the throwback font and the galloping white stag.

That move to Portland is symbolic of my own spiritual journey: over the years I've transitioned from a conservative evangelical worldview to a much more progressive Christian agnostic worldview. The symbolism doesn't end there, however. More importantly, that vivid memory of crossing the bridge reminds me of my specific calling as a bridge builder.

What exactly is bridge building? First of all, let me emphasize what it is not. Bridge building does not mean compromise. When you build a bridge, you are building a bridge to a person. You are saying: I may disagree with you on x, y, z, and more, but you and I are more than our opinions and ideas. We are both image-bearers and bonded together in our humanity. It means finding a connection. Common ground. Bridge building is one of the many incarnations of Love.

But I realized something, just recently. In the greatly diverse and mysterious Body of Christ, we are all bridge builders. Personally, I feel called to bridge the gap between progressive Christians and those who I call "potential allies" - those who have honest questions, doubts, and fears regarding faith and sexuality. But those I who I would label progressive activists are actually bridge builders too. They are building bridges with people that no one else could reach--they fiercely stand in solidarity those who are marginalized by society, by the church, and by other power structures that most of us struggle to see. Still others build bridges with those who have suffered horrific abuse from family members, church authorities, spouses, acquaintances, and strangers.

Recently, there has been talk of many Christians abandoning the "evangelical" label once and for all. As someone who abandoned that label years ago, I welcome this news. However, as necessary as it may be to leave the label behind, it still leaves many others feeling caught, abandoned, even betrayed. It takes someone with a unique calling to build bridges across this divide.

Across the spectrum of what we label as Left and Right there are multiple divides. I believe we each have a unique calling to stand in one (or more) of these multiple divides. I also believe these divides are symptoms of our world's Chaos, rather than the cause of it. Divides are inevitable and often necessary. But as we struggle againsts the "principalities and powers" of
this Chaos, let's not forget our own specific calling to build bridges to people across the divide we find ourselves. In that sense, the church can be a spiritual Bridgetown.

What about you? Do you feel a specific calling as bridge builder? If so, to whom?